You were not very fair to 13 there. Haha! Like always, an incredible read and something to look at from your Steemit journey. I was glad while reading because there is so much relatable. Also, your specifics are different from others and you have shared your specific, some of which can be used by us as well.
I would like to share my thoughts about each of your points.
Glad I don't watch TV and take interest in talking to people online as well. It gives me a lot of room to share my ideas and engage with people. The number of my followers has grown to more than 3500 now in just 9 months. So, I can highly relate with your situation.
Working for myself full time is not a luxury that I have. The job takes a lot of time and it restricts my activity in many ways. You have worked hard and passionately to build business(es) for yourself and you deserve all the flexibility.
I started on Blogger in 2013 and then had my own WordPress blog in 2016. I learned rigorously for one year before joining Steemit and that experience definitely helped.
I was always appreciated for my teaching skills by the people who I taught to. My Steemit blog exhibits that passion. Most of my posts are educational in nature. I am also learning more about finance, leadership and other important matters in life. I read books. When I feel comfortable to share my knowledge and experience in these fields, I'll start writing on a variety of carefully chosen topics.
I learned basic HTML in 2016 and Markdown when I joined Steemit. Due to WP experience, I could use the visual editor to create proper blog posts as well. Being a blogger, online sources/tools like Pixabay, Canva, TinyPNG etc. were already known to me. It all helps. I keep sharing this knowledge with my followers as well.
I blogged on WP for a year without earning anything. I kept learning and enjoyed blogging so much. People started praising my work in some months. It helps on Steemit too. Outside sickness or domestic urgencies, I have managed to be consistent on Steemit.
I think it was unfair to downvote you. It's discouraging but you stood strong and it has paid off. You don't buy votes and you consistently put in a lot of effort in to your content. It deserves the rewards it gets and I think it should get more, and more often. I do get discouraged at times but it is often caused by external factors. Steemit is love. It keeps being generous.
I may not be as good as you in linking to your previous content but this is something I do in my posts too. I also link to great content written by established authors because it provides a lot of values. For example, while sharing my 9 goals for 2018, I invited people to think about Steemit as an immutable storage space for important memories and milestones. I linked to your blog and one post on it which stored your memeories with your kids. It was about Devon's new laptop and SmartCash gifts for Aria. You can find it in the opening paragraph of my post.
I would say that we all need an audience to speak to. The sooner people realize this obvious truth, the better their results will be. Audience in an online environment is always built, deserved and won through value provision.
I was lucky to have $1500-2000 payouts on multiple posts when Steem and SBD were high in value. It feels so good but it takes a lot of effort to make that happen. Something you covered in detail in your keynote speech. Nothing is easy to do.
As far as problems are concerned, I always try to understand them and solve them myself. It is so much better to fail and learn than to get help and remain ignorant. Then, knowing things helps me share the knowledge further and people see value in it.
I have put in a small amount in Steem as well. I have also reinvested hundreds of SBDs that earned here into Steem Power. I spent some Steem to get some SP on lease so that I may reward my commenters and adjust my comments feed. Also, it helps me curate content that I see value in or earn some SBD through vote selling when I am inactive. I know that you believe in being an owner not a renter but specifics mattter a lot. I am hopeful that specifics will change soon for me and I will be heading towards ownership as well.
Steemit has seen a lot of development lately. Hardforks, new economic opportunities, thousands of new users, new promotion trends etc. have changed a lot of things here. You're so honest about being lucky because you joined at a time when growth was easier for anyone who could stick around. Being supported manually or through autovoting by initial people with heavy stakes is a luxury newer people can hardly afford. I won't call it lucky that you are a programmer. It's a hard earned skill that is paying off.
It was a pleasure writing these thoughts because it made the learning permanent and it gave me some solid foundations to strengthen and build on. Thank you for being so educative in your content.
I wish you more and more success on Steemit, as an author and a witness, and in life.
Ilyas
Wow, what a great comment. Thank you, Ilyas!
You are most welcome. I have the other two posts (reputation, relationships) open as well for reading and then sharing my feedback. Thank you for the nice upvote.
Hi @lukestokes
You publish great content on your blog. I hope this will be help me . thanks a lot.